And I have tried refering to the gif in the following manner: out.println("<IMG SRC=tick.gif'></TD>"); out.println("<IMG SRC=/tick.gif'></TD>"); out.println("<IMG SRC='myapp/tick.gif'></TD>"); out.println("<IMG SRC='/myapp/tick.gif'></TD>");

You should deploy the image file to somewhere in the public part of your application (in the case of Tomcat, this is some path under the docBase which isn't /WEB-INF/).

You then need to use a link which corresponds to the location of the file as seen by a browser. It's difficult to say much more without knowing where you publicly want the image to be accessible from, and how your domain is configured. It might be a good idea to use the opening / (absolute path) or it might not be (relative path), it depends on what you're trying to do.

More information would be helpful - for example, what URL are you currently accessing the application via?